• Preparing to Clean Up Following an Anthrax Attack

    The microorganism that causes anthrax, the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, has infected people and animals since ancient times. Anthrax is one of the most likely agents to be used in a biological attack, because the anthrax bacteria exist in the natural environment, can be easily disguised in powders, sprays, food or water, and have been previously used as a biological warfare agent.

  • What if J. Edgar Hoover Had Been a Moron?

    Benjamin Wittes, founder and co-editor of Lawfare, writes that it was on the ninth day of the Trump presidency, when writing in response to the new president’s new travel ban executive order, that he coined the phrase “malevolence tempered by incompetence.” But he never imagined in doing so that the phrase might aptly describe the Trump administration’s behavior toward him personally. In his detailed article, Wittes looks at both the incompetence, “which is simple and easy to understand and genuinely amusing,” and then the malevolence beneath it—”which is more complicated and is not amusing at all.”

  • Pompeo: U.S. Will Take Action on Chinese Software in “Coming Days

    Chinese software companies operating in the United States assiduously collect customers’ personal date, browsing habits, facial images, and other information and deliver it to China’s intelligence agencies for possible use by China when it would serve China’s interests to do so. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that the fact the Chinese software companies serve as information collectors for China’s intelligence agencies poses a serious national security threat to the United States, and that the administration, in the coming days, will soon announce a series of measures aiming to restrict the ability of Chinese software companies to operate in this way, and ban some companies from operating in the United States altogether.

  • Mystery Seeds from China A Concern for USDA

    During the last few weeks, dozens of people in twenty-two states have been receiving mysterious packages of seeds from China in their mail. The purpose of the mystery packages is not clear, but USDA urges recipients of the seed packages to hold onto the seeds and packaging, including the mailing label, until someone from their states’ department of agriculture or USDA APHIS contacts them with further instructions. The mystery seeds should not be planted, or mixed with legitimate seeds.

  • New Algorithms Could Reduce Polarization Engendered by Information Overload

    As the volume of available information expands, the fraction a person is able to absorb shrinks. They end up retreating into a narrow slice of thought, becoming more vulnerable to misinformation, and polarizing into isolated enclaves of competing opinions. To break this cycle, computer scientists say we need new algorithms that prioritize a broader view over fulfilling consumer biases.

  • TruNews Using Facebook to Disseminate, Amplify Anti-Semitism, Conspiracies

    TruNews, the fundamentalist Christian video streaming site which disseminates anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and Islamophobic propaganda, also posts and livestreams extremist content on social media platforms. Rick Wiles, the site’s founder, and his fellow hosts often combine their hate speech with extreme conspiracy theories. Among the conspiracy theories: the U.S. government spread the Ebola virus on U.S. soil; the U.S. and Israel created ISIS; and that Jews were responsibility for COVID-19 nd the impeachment of President Trump.

  • Time to Recognize Dr. Irfaan Ali as President of Guyana

    National elections were held on 2 March in the Republic of Guyana, in South America. The incumbent President David Granger lost by nearly 6 percent. The opposition presidential candidate, Dr. Irfaan Ali, won. Granger has refused to accept the voters’ verdict, and has done everything to try to illegally change, falsify, and delay the election results, and illegally keep power – and allow him and his coterie time to steal everything not bolted down. There comes a point when patience is no longer a virtue, and delay becomes complicity. Democracy cannot survive if the actions of a would-be dictator and his flunkies to cancel or defraud an election - the will of the voters - are allowed to stand. Dr. Irfaan Ali won the 2 March election. Without any further delay, America should recognize his election, and recognize him as the President of Guyana. It is time for the United States, and Guyana’s other international friends, to end this farce. Recognize Dr. Irfaan Ali as President now and assist him, with police and military assistance if necessary, to restore democracy in Guyana.

  • “Ghostwriter” Influence Campaign: Fabricated Content Pushes Narratives Aligned With Russian Security Interests

    FireEye says that Mandiant Threat Intelligence has tied together several information operations which FireEye assess with moderate confidence to comprise part of a broader influence campaign—ongoing since at least March 2017—aligned with Russian security interests. FireEye has dubbed this campaign “Ghostwriter.”

  • What Is Russia's Vagner Paramilitary Group and What Was It Doing in Belarus ahead of Vote?

    The Vagner Group is one of the best-known of several Russian private paramilitary organizations which have come into being over the past decade. The organization is widely believed to be controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a longtime associate of Vladimir Putin who once served as the Russian president’s chef. Vagner’s operations have always been held in close secrecy, in part because mercenary activity is illegal under Russian law and in part because the group is widely believed to operate in close cooperation with Russian military intelligence.

  • Election Cyber Surge Initiative Launches

    On Friday, the University of Chicago’s Cyber Policy Initiative (CPI) announced the launch of the Election Cyber Surge initiative to help address the urgent need to connect state and local election offices with volunteer technologists. The initiative will create a database which will allow officials to search for potential volunteers in their state or city by skillset, subject matter expertise, or cybersecurity experience.

  • Research on Voting by Mail Says It’s Safe – from Fraud and Disease

    As millions of Americans prepare to vote in November – and in many cases, primaries and state and local elections through the summer as well – lots of people are talking about voting by mail. Some critics – including President Donald Trump on several occasions – have cast doubt on the integrity of mail-in voting, even though some of them have voted by mail in the past. The evidence shows that voting by mail is rarely subject to fraud, does not give an advantage to one political party over another and can in fact inspire public confidence in the voting process, if done properly.

  • Trust in Data Privacy Increases During Pandemic

    COVID-19 has seen Australians become more trusting of organizations and governments when it comes to their personal data and privacy, according to new research. “Our findings provide strong support for the notion that trust and confidence in different aspects of policy design and delivery interact with each other, creating vicious or virtuous circles,” says the study’s lead author.

  • Dismantle the Department of Homeland Security

    Richard A. Clarke, who served on the National Security Council for Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, minces no words in calling for the dismantling of DHS. “President Trump has, often intentionally, damaged essential federal departments and agencies, driving from their ranks thousands of career civil servants who are global experts and national treasures,” he writes. But “No national institution has been more damaged than the Department of Homeland Security.” He adds: “For the patriotic, underpaid Americans working hard in the agencies of the DHS, what Trump has done to their reputations is a tragedy. The department, however, was doomed from the start.”

  • U.S. Federal Agents to Begin Portland Withdrawal

    Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon said federal officers would begin leaving the city of Portland on Thursday after an agreement between local and federal officials. Brown was among the leaders who criticized the presence of the federal agents, saying Wednesday they “acted as an occupying force and brought violence.” The federal government said the deployment to Portland was necessary to restore order and faulted local leaders for allowing ongoing protests that they said endangered federal property, including a courthouse.

  • New Partnership Aims to Detect, Mitigate Attempts to Subvert, Delegitimize November Election

    Four of the U.S. leading institutions focused on analysis of mis- and disinformation in the social media landscape have created a new partnership — the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) – which aims to detect and mitigate the impact of attempts to prevent or deter people from voting or to delegitimize election results.